The impact of youth pro-climate policy preferences on political support: evidence from salience shifts in Germany

Can unmet climate demands erode political support among younger citizens? This study examines how rising pro-climate preferences affect political support under conditions of heightened issue salience. The central argument is that policy preferences shape evaluations of incumbent and system performances, primarily when the issue is sufficiently salient to enter citizens’ political calculus. Salience functions as a priority weight that activates the link between preference (in)congruence and political support, while shifts in public attention may amplify this relationship over time. Using panel data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (2016–2022), I analyse within-individual preference change and variation in climate salience across cohorts and time. I leverage the rise of Fridays for Future (FFF) as a focal attention environment shift. The results show that climate change carries greater salience for younger than for older citizens; this gap widens following the rise of FFF. Consistent with the activation argument, within individuals, shifts toward more pro-climate preferences are associated with declines in specific support among younger respondents, but less consistently so for older respondents. The link between climate preferences and political support does not strengthen in the post-2019 period. These findings suggest that while climate considerations are more consequential for political evaluations among younger citizens, temporal increases in salience alone are not sufficient to intensify dissatisfaction. More broadly, the results highlight that the political consequences of policy preferences depend on the salience of the issue and the conditions under which attention is translated into evaluative judgements.